So in the 2nd part of this 4 part series we discusses metrics used to set goals by. This time we are going to go over metrics that can be used to learn from. Now as I am sure you can imagine there will be some redundancy here. Also these types of metrics' are more than just pure numbers, you will need to collect some reasoning data, as to why things are happening but you can learn allot from this information. In fact "learning Metrics" are the most all encompassing of the types or uses for metrics.So some of the metrics' that can be used to learn from and what you learn are, in no order:Screen to the tech screen: this shows you what percentage of the people your staffing professional, recruiters, or screener are talking to that are going on to tech screen. What you can learn is how good or bad your people are at screening candidates, and also how good are the sourcers at sourcing. Now of course it is more than just the percentage you must also know the reasons to really know what is happening.

Tech screen to face to face interview: This is how many of the candidates being tech screened are going on to interviews. This can show you how good your screeners and sourcer are, and also tell you how good the tech screeners are. Of course again you will also need to know the reasons behind the decisions that impact these numbers.

Interview to offer: This will show us how good are tech screener are, as well as what percentage of interviewed candidates get offers.

Acceptance rate: This will show us what percentage of offers are accepted. This will also show us how good our people and hire teams are at closing a candidate

Hire Source: This will show us where we are getting our hires from. This will help you plan where to spend our money as far as sourcing goes.

Relocations: What percentage of our hires require relocation. Again good for budgeting.

Offers within Range: In most cases we have a salary range. However in some cases we need to go outside of that range,. This lets us know the percentage that are outside of the range, and again is good for budgeting.

Rush Interviews: This tells us what percentage of our interviews are rush, meaning must take place within 7days and there for cost us more. Again for budgeting.

Time to Fill: This is the time to fill an opening from when it is opened to when it is filled. This is important because it allows us to take into account how long it might take to fill a position. This is good for budgeting, project scope etc..

HM Turnaround: How long is it taking for the HM to get back to us about a candidate. This is important because it lets us know if the HM is a bottle neck.

Client Sat: This is simple, how happy are the clients with us.

Candidate Sat: How well did we take care of our candidates. This is important because, it goes to the companies reputation and thus its ability to get good candidates.

False Starts: How many candidates accept our offer, have a start date but then fail to start.

Signing Bonus: What percentage of candidates are getting singing bonus's. This is for budgeting purposes and general knowledge.

Hire still with company after 1 and 5 years and what level: This goes to how good was the hire, and turnover. Also what level are they at now. This goes for upward mobility.

OK there are allot more, but here are some of the best.

Please Remember with most of these it is not just the numbers you want. You need to know the why, how much, etc..

Most staffing professionals, hiring managers, and others who do interviews seem to be under a misunderstanding as it relates to interviewing. They feel that they are doing the interviewing and that is all. They do not realize that the candidate is interviewing us as well.When you are interviewing a candidate the candidate is taking mental notes of everything said, not said etc. They are trying to decide if offered the position would they want to work there? Would they want to work with these people?It is imperative we remember and understand this so we put our best foot forward and ensure we leave the candidate with a positive impression. Even if we do not hire this person it is still crucial we leave them with the right impression, as you never know who they know, and who they will talk to. All you need to do is go on www.galssdoor.com to see how we act in an interview can impact the candidates and who they might tell.As I alluded to in my posts titled “it’s a small world” and “the amazing gravitational field of the best” It is not just that one candidate but the ones that they will talk to you need to remember. Candidate satisfaction is a very important thing to keep in mind, especially if you hire allot of the same skills, because the candidates will talk.So remember interviewing is a 2 way street and the impression we make on the candidate is as important as the impression they leave on us.

This is the first in a 4 part series on Metrics and goals.I have read over and over again about metrics based goals for staffing professionals and recruiters. I have created, reviewed, analyzed, and been held accountable to metrics'. However the one thing I have come to learn is, in general we make it way to hard. We tend to over analyze, over metric ourselves to death. Yes all the different metrics have a place, and you can gleam some great information from them. However with regards to a measuring the success of an individual in the staffing profession, we make it way to hard.

Please remember metrics' are designed to show us info, not the whole story. You will need to understand the; whys, and what happened to understand things fully.

So to that end the simple metrics to use to measure the success of someone in the staffing world. This will be based on their function, and we will only address the below functions or titles:

Staffing Professional(SP) - expert with the whole Staffing Lifecycle (SLC). Will perform all or parts of the SLC.

Recruiter - expert with most of the SLC, mainly from the executive or contracting point of view. Will perform all or parts of the SLC.

Sourcer - expert at research, boolean scripting and expert hunter.

The main reason only these 3, is because they are the most common, although they may have a different names the functions are the most common.

The main metrics that should be used are:

Hires - number of hires

Client Satisfaction - how happy are your clients with you. This will be your hiring manager if you are corporate.Candidate Satisfaction - how happy were your candidate with you. Of course you take into account those that are not hired.Tech screens - the number of candidate submitted that are tech screened. If your model does not have tech screens you can use..interviews- number who got interviews.Now of course there are a plethora of other metrics' you could use. Such as: interview to offer ratio, hire acceptance ratio, time to fill, time to screen, source of hire, etc..Most of those however are not needed to judge if your staffing person is doing their jobs. What they will tell you is, were the bottle neck is, were are you getting the hires, why are people turning you down, etc..

Now the question is which metrics to use for which position. The answer is very simple. Which metrics does that position have at least 50% input into? Example, a sourcer, who only finds candidates and screens them, has less than 50% input into the actual hire. What they do have at least 50% input into is; tech screens, candidate sat, and client sat. So you measure them on those things.

So for the staffing positions listed above here is a recommendation of metrics to use:

Staffing Professional and Recruiter, doing A-Z the whole SLC: Hires, Client Sat, Candidate Sat. Of course you can take away or add based on how much input they have to each metrics, the goal is 50% or more.

Sourcer - Tech screen, Candidate Sat, Client sat. Now this is tough, some will say, they have a better than 50% impact on the hires. But that depends on the way the sourcer is being used. If the sourcer only finds, and does an HR screen, and then sends it to another staffing professional who does all the rest, ie.., presents to the client, has tech screened, sets up face to face, interviews during face to face, and then makes an offer or turn the candidates down. In this case the sourcer has far less than 50% input into the hire. The handoff takes the sourcer out of it, with allot of the process still to come.

GOALS--Something to take into consideration with regards to these metrics'. Based on these metrics' you will create goals for your people. With regards to hires, you cannot give an SP who is hiring for junior level developers, the same goal as an SP who is hiring for Sr. level developers. The reason is, hiring for more senior levels is much harder, also there are usually fewer open positions for the more senior positions. So remember to take everything into account before you create the goals for your people.

Now of course again, this is very general, it is based on one of many staffing models that are being used. However it is simple accurate and takes into account the actual input each of the positions have in the entire SLC. No matter which model you use, if you utilize the 50% rule you will ensure you are using the right metrics' for the right job, function, role or title and of course make sure you understand, the whys, and what happened, when someone does not meet the goal or metrics.

Within the staffing community, Hiring teams (HT, (this consists of Hiring manager, and possible first and second level interviewers) and businesses themselves there has always been controversy over how do you determine the expertise level of a candidate. Interviews, technical testing, reference checks, and more are all tools that can be used. Some staffing professionals (SP), and companies rely purely on one of the afore mentioned tools. (please keep in mind this applies mainly to corporate staffing). In reality it should not be anyone thing. It should be a combination, some people are not good test takers, but can perform the job way above and beyond.The key is to remember an interview, a test, a resume, a reference check, social media checking, are all parts of the puzzle that need to be done to get the full picture. That is not to say you must do them all to make a decision. However the more you know the better decision you can make.As it relates to testing it is very important to remember that you do not make the test too long, and that you administer it at the right time or you will lose potential candidates who do not want to waste time taking a long test when they have not been given the opportunity to talk to anyone the HT to ensure they are interested. A SP can only get a candidate so interested then the HT must help.An example of a process that incorporates all of these tools is below (this is a shortened version and not all inclusive just an example)

1. Decision made to make a hire 2. JD written and posted 3. Sourcing happens 4. A candidate found from sourcing or applies (this means resume are screened to determine first level fit) and are screened by staffing professional. These screens include talking with candidate, and social media check (this includes; blogs, Linkedin recommendation, SP network check, etc.). 5. Results presented to HT 6. Candidates who are chosen for next steps talk with first level HT interviewer, who spends 5-10 minutes asking general question to gain more info, usually these are general technical questions. Reason for this is also to allow the candidates to ask more question about the job, group, etc. (remember the candidates are interviewing the company hiring as well as we are interviewing them.) 7. Decision is made to go on to next step or not. 8. If decision is to move on to next step then SP sends a 5-10 question technical test. If not SP lets the candidate know 9. Results of technical test are put together with SP screen, Fist level HT screen, resume, social media check, and any other info to determine fi face to face interviews should happen. The key here is no one thing should make a candidate a go or a no. If the candidate did well on the phone with the first level HT interviewer but only did okay on the tech test you might want to still bring them in.

Of course you might be able to delete a step here and there or add as needed, but you get the idea. The point is to ensure any testing is done at the right time, is not too long and is only a piece of the puzzle used to determine next steps.

There are allot of ideas, ways, and thoughts around how to measure a recruiter/sourcer/?. The ? stands for whatever title you are using for the job. First let me explain some basic information that will help determine the best method to measure with.First what exactly is the person doing? We in the industry call staffing professionals different things. Some are interchangeable some are specific, and all have different functions, for example;

As you can see there are allot of titles given to staffing professionals, and I have not even named them all. For the purposes of this post, we are referring to an individual’s goals, not a team goal.The biggest key to how to measure a staffing professional is not by title, but by the function, they are performing and what of that function they have a majority of the control over. For example, if you are a Sourcer and your function is just to source perspective candidate’s resumes, not talk to them, not screen them, just source, why would you be goaled on hires. You have no control over hires. You are having to rely on; someone else to screen them, someone else to represent them to the hiring manager, someone else to arrange tech screen, and again represent them to the hiring manager, someone else to arrange face to face interviews, someone else to interview them, someone else to monitor the interview loop, someone else to make the case to hire, someone else to make the offer, etc... As you can see as a Sourcer, doing nothing more than sourcing you have very little control over the actual hiring. So why would you measure a sourcer like this? The answer is you should be measuring them on the number of candidate resumes they find that meet the qualifications of the positions or profile. Not the number of hires.If we learn to measure each staffing professional based on the function they are performing, and how much control they have in the overall process, we will get a much more accurate idea of how they are doing, how what they are doing impacts the whole process, and were, if any, there are issues within the total process.Let's look at an example of a complete process (readers digest version and note this is not the whole SLC (see blog post on SLC) this is only the more specific parts.).if the process is as follows;1. Meet with hiring managers (HM)2. Creates job description and SLA3. Source4. Screen5. Present to HM6. arrange teach screen7. Present to HM or arrange face-to-face interview8. Interview9. Present hire choices10. Make offerSo, that is the process, and you have a sourcer who only performs step 3, why would you measure them on hires. They have virtually no control over hires. Instead measure them on what they do control, sourced candidates. You can see by the process above how easily it would be to figure out where the sticking points may be, as long as you are measuring everyone involved on the things they control, not on things that are out of their control.I recently attended a webinar by a highly successful staffing professional from a Healthcare organization. He outlined their process they have now, and who owned what, they had two staffing professional that combine to do the entire process. Basically, one owned steps 1-4 the other 5-11. The ones who owned 1-4 were measured on screened candidates, the one who owned steps 5-11 was measured on interviewed candidates. Notice not hires. The reason is because neither had any control over that. In most cases, the HM had all the control, and for allot of reasons, might choose not to make a hire, despite a hirable candidate. Some reasons could be, deciding not to hire, hiring an internal, changing the role, budget changes, etc... So why would the staffing professionals be held accountable for something they have no control over. By the way, this organization boasts some of the best hire numbers in the industry. Now that is not to say this holds true in all cases, in some cases the staffing professional has enough control or enough openings to warrant being measured on hires. If internal hires count, then measuring on hires could be ok. It is a case-by-case, process by process decision.What it boils down to is finding that thing that makes up the majority of what the staffing professional does and has control over and measuring them on that. That is not to say you do not keep track of other things, keeping track of them help you determine were the issues might be. It just means you do not measure the staffing professional’s performance on them.

As, with anything, that involves multiple people or entities having to work together, it goes much easier when everyone understands the hows and whys of working together. As a staffing professional, we must ensure we establish the process we will use to help our clients fill positions. A well established and agreed upon process makes it easier all around. Everyone knows what to expect from you and what is expected from them. Go so far as to create an SLA or SOW even. Remember a well established and agreed upon process can make working and succeeding easier. It is a win win.

We have all heard the acronym ROI, we all know, or you do now, that it stands for "Return on Investment". However let’s really look at what that means.Simply put ROI can be broken down into 4 components, below each are examples of things to look at, for the purposes of this posting we will look at staffing ROI, but the 4 components are universal across all functions:

1. Cost - how much did or is it costing to get the job done or make the product?a. cost per hireb. advertising costc. relo costsd. sign on bonus costs

2. Quality - is what we are doing, making, or creating of the highest standards?a. level of hireb. number of hires still at company after 1-3-5 yearsc. review scores of new hiresd. new hires promoted in first year3. Time - how long is it taking?a. time to fillb. time to interviewc. time to startd. time to screen

Please keep in mind this was a simple an easy view of ROI. It can me much larger and more complex. You can use an almost limitless amount of criteria to look at under each component to make your ROI view.Also keep in mind just the ROI numbers themselves do not tell the whole story. What they do is tell you were to look harder to get the whole story.

Candidate and Client Satisfaction!!!- Well this is one of the most important issues for a recruiter/staffing professional. It is not just about filling positions. It is about having a good relationship with your client and ensuring you treat each candidate with respect. Remember it is a small world and I can guarantee you, candidates talk. You treat one bad and it will get around. Same goes for clients, treat one bad and it will get around and make things difficult. If you truly want to be a "world class staffing professional" you must make sure every client and every candidate feels like they were treated with the utmost respect and consideration. The key is to "treat them the way you would want to be treated", do this and you are golden.